Deak and colleagues (1) raise doubts about the value of recent FDA-approved antibiotics. To the contrary, these approvals—enabled by innovative study design and regulatory guidance—represent meaningful progress for patients and public health through restoration of evidence-based, feasible antibacterial drug development. Asserting that antibacterial drug development should require “demonstrated superiority” represents a fundamental misunderstanding of societal and drug development issues. Superiority designs require delaying development until resistant bacteria are highly prevalent, a time when substantial patient harm has occurred.

Since 2010, the FDA has approved 6 of the 10 systemically available antibiotics highlighted in the Infectious...